Socrates

This article is about the ancient Greek philosopher, for all other uses see: Socrates (disambiguation)

Socrates (ca. 469 B.C.E. – 399 B.C.E.) (Greek Σωκράτης Sōkrátēs; but in English always: Sǒkratēs) was a Greek philosopher.

Historians of philosophy divide the history of Greek philosophy into two periods, before Socrates and after Socrates. All philosophers who appeared before Socrates are grouped together and called Pre-Socratics. Socrates is a pivotal figure who divides the history of Greek philosophy. Why is this so?

Philosophy began as the quest for unchanging Principles. This distinguishes philosophy from myth, which is story telling. Pre-Socratics tried to find natural principles without a clear understanding of the distinct characteristics of human beings. Socrates is the first person who brought the issues of human beings to the center of philosophical inquiry. With Socrates, deep inquiries into human life and human beings really began. The unexamined life is not worth living. (Apology, 38. is one of the best known phrases by Socrates.

Framework of His Thought

Every philosophy is built upon certain convictions which stay as the presuppositions of that thought. Socrates’ thought is built upon two important insights.

The soul is immortal
The care of the soul is the task of philosophy

The soul is immortal

Human life does not end at one’s death. Death is merely the departure for afterlife. Facing his own death, Socrates explained the meaning of death in front of weeping friends and disciples and asked, why not celebrate the death? Death, he explained, is the departure of the soul for the eternal world.

The care of the Soul

Upon the conviction that the essence of the self is the soul and that one continues to live in the world after death, Socrates took the caring of the soul to be the most important issue in human life. Socrates challenged a variety of secular relativists, Sophists in particular, who taught the art of success and promoted hedonistic way of life.

Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle

It is quite interesting to find that three of history’s greatest thinkers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle appeared during the same period. Furthermore, Socrates was the teacher of Plato and Aristotle was the student of Plato. Karl Jaspers, a twentieth century philosopher, noticed the synchronous appearance of major thinkers in human history world-wide, such as Jewish prophets, Zoroaster, Buddha, Upanishad and Confucian thinkers, in both the East and West. He conceived the period of three centuries before and three centuries after 500 B.C.E. as the Axial age which laid the foundation for religions and philosophies.

Resource Issues about Socrates

Today, we have no recorded work written by Socrates. If Socrates ever wrote a single word, it has not survived. As such, the entirety of modern knowledge concerning Socrates must be drawn from a limited number of secondary sources, primarily the works of his student Plato, and others such as Aristophanes and Xenophon. Aristophanes was known as a satirist, and so his accounts of Socrates may well be skewed, exaggerated, or totally falsified. Fragmentary evidence also exists from Socrates' contemporaries. Giannantoni, in his monumental work Socratis et Socraticorum Reliquiae collects every scrap of evidence pertaining to Socrates. It includes writers such as Aeschines Socraticus (not the orator), Antisthenes, and a number of others who knew Socrates. Due to the problems inherent in such sources, all information regarding Socrates should be taken as possibly, but not definitely, true.

His character and family background

According to accounts from antiquity, Socrates' father was Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and his mother Phaenarete, a midwife. He was married to Xanthippe, who bore him three sons. By the cultural standards of the time, she was considered a shrew. Socrates himself attested that he, having learned to live with Xanthippe, would be able to cope with any other human being (supposedly), just as a horse trainer accustomed to wilder horses might be more competent than one not. He also saw military action, fighting at the Battle of Potidaea, the Battle of Delium and the Battle of Amphipolis. It is believed, based on Plato's Symposium, that Socrates was decorated for bravery. In one instance he stayed with his wounded friend Alcibiades, and probably saved his life; despite the objections of Alcibiades, Socrates refused any sort of official recognition and instead encouraged the decoration of Alcibiades. During such campaigns, he also showed his extraordinary hardiness, walking without shoes and a coat in winter.

It is unclear what exactly Socrates did for a living. He did not work; in Xenophon's Symposium he explicitly states that he devotes himself only to discussing philosophy, and that he thinks this is the most important art or occupation. It is unlikely that he was able to live off of family inheritance, given his father's occupation as an artisan. In the accounts of Plato, Socrates explicitly denies accepting money for teaching; however, Xenophon's Symposium clearly has Socrates state that he is paid by his students, and Aristophanes depicts Socrates as running a school of sophistry with his friend Chaerephon. It is also possible that Socrates survived off of the generosity of his wealthy and powerful friends, such as Alcibiades.

Trial and Death

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The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787)

Socrates lived during the time of the transition from the height of the Athenian Empire to its decline after its defeat by Sparta and its allies in the Peloponnesian War. At a time when Athens was seeking to recover from humiliating defeat, the Athenian public court was induced by three leading public figures to try Socrates for impiety and for corrupting the youth of Athens.

He questioned everything and everyone, those who claimed to have knowledge in particular, and apparently it offended the leaders of his time. He was found guilty as charged, and sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. His friends and students bribed the prison guard and prepared a ship to escape, but he refused to leave and took a poisonous herb. The dramatic court scene and his final speech in the prison are depicted by Plato in his Apology. Socrates’ attitude when facing his own death brought about by unjust charges, as recorded by Plato, is remembered in human history.

Knowing One’s Own Ignorance

According to the version of his defense speech presented in Plato's Apology, Socrates' life as the "gadfly" of Athens began when his friend Chaerephon asked the oracle at Delphi if anyone was wiser than Socrates; the Oracle responded negatively. Socrates, interpreting this as a riddle, set out to find men who were wiser than him. He questioned the men of Athens about their knowledge of good, beauty, and virtue. Finding that they knew nothing and yet believing themselves to know much, Socrates came to the conclusion that he was wise only in so far as he knew he knew nothing. The others only falsely thought they had knowledge.

Philosophy

Socratic method

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One of his important contributions to Western thought is his dialogical method of inquiry, known as the Socratic Method or method of elenchos, which he largely applied to the examination of key moral concepts such as the Good and Justice, concepts used constantly without any real definition. It was first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues. For this, Socrates is customarily regarded as the father and fountainhead for ethics or moral philosophy and of philosophy in general.

In this method, a series of questions are posed to help a person or group to determine their underlying beliefs and the extent of their knowledge. The Socratic method is a negative method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those which lead to contradictions. It was designed to force one to examine his own beliefs and the validity of such beliefs.

Awakening of the Soul and the Truth within

The insights inherent to Socrates’ method should be noted. Philosophical theories and views are supported by one’s convictions or beliefs at a deeper level. Socrates tried to awaken the soul of his partner in dialogue, rather than trying to give them knowledge, so that they would be led to self-realization about their own beliefs and their validity.

Philosophical beliefs

Detailing the philosophical beliefs of Socrates is no easy matter; as he wrote nothing himself, we must rely on the (sometimes) conflicting reports of Plato and Xenophon. There is ongoing debate as to what, exactly, Socrates believed as opposed to Plato, and little in the way of concrete evidence when demarcating the two. There are some who claim that Socrates had no particular set of beliefs, and sought only to examine; the lengthy theories he gives in the Republic are considered to be the thoughts of Plato. Others argue that he did have his own theories and beliefs, but there is much controversy over what these might have been, owing to both the difficulty of separating Socrates from Plato and the difficulty of even interpreting the dramatic writings of Plato. Therefore, it is very important to keep this in mind when reading the following presentations of Socrates' thought; none of it is agreed upon, and all must be taken with a grain of salt.

Evidence from the dialogues suggests Socrates had only two teachers: Prodicus, a grammarian, and Diotima, a woman from Mantinea who taught him about eros, or love. His knowledge of other contemporary thinkers such as Parmenides and Anaxagoras is evident from a number of dialogues, and historical sources often include both of them as Socrates' teachers. Apollo himself may be considered one of his teachers, as Socrates claims (in Plato's Apology) that his habit of constant conversation was obedience to god. See below for more on the divine sign.

Knowledge

Socrates believed that his wisdom sprung from an awareness of his own ignorance. Socrates believed that wrongdoing came from ignorance, that those who did wrong knew no better. The one thing Socrates consistently claimed to have knowledge of was "the art of love" or "the love of wisdom", i.e., philosophy. He never claimed to be actually wise, only to understand the path one must take to become wise. It is debatable whether Socrates believed that humans (as opposed to gods like Apollo) could actually become wise. On the one hand, he drew a clear line between human ignorance and ideal knowledge; on the other, Plato's Symposium and Republic describe a method for ascending to wisdom.

In Xenophon's Symposium Socrates describes what he knows and does as the art of pandering; as a teacher, he is paid to show people how and where to acquire wisdom, although he is not himself what they are looking for. In the Theaetetus and elsewhere Socrates calls himself a midwife, explaining that he is himself barren of theories, but knows how to bring the theories of others to birth and determine whether they are worthy or mere "wind eggs". Perhaps significantly, he points out that midwives are barren due to age, and women who have never given birth are unable to become midwives; a truly barren woman would have no experience or knowledge of birth and would be unable to separate the worthy infants from those that should be left on the hillside to be exposed. To judge this, the midwife must have experience and knowledge of what she is judging.

Virtue

Socrates believed that the best way for people to live was to focus on self-development rather than the pursuit of material wealth. (Gross 2). He always invited others to try to concentrate more on friendships and a sense of true community, for Socrates felt that this was the best way for people to grow together as a populace. His actions lived up to this: in the end, Socrates accepted his death sentence when most thought he would simply leave Athens, as he felt he could not run away from or go against the will of his community; as above, his reputation for valor on the battlefield was without reproach.

The idea that humans possessed certain virtues formed a common thread in Socrates' teachings. These virtues represented the most important qualities for a person to have, foremost of which were the philosophical or intellectual virtues. Socrates stressed that "virtue was the most valuable of all possessions; the ideal life was spent in search of the Good. Truth lies beneath the shadows of existence, and that it is the job of the philosopher to show the rest how little they really know." (Solomon 44)

Ultimately, virtue relates to the form of the Good; to truly be good and not just act with "right opinion" one must come to know the unchanging Good in itself. In the Republic, he describes the "divided line", a continuum of ignorance to knowledge with the Good on top of it all; only at the top of this line do we find true good and the knowledge of such.

Politics

It is often argued that Socrates believed "ideals belong in a world that only the wise man can understand" making the philosopher the only type of person suitable to govern others. According to Plato's account, Socrates was in no way subtle about his particular beliefs on government. He openly objected to the democracy that ran Athens during his adult life. It was not only Athenian democracy: Socrates objected to any form of government that did not conform to his ideal of a perfect republic led by philosophers (Solomon 49), and Athenian government was far from that. During the last years of Socrates' life, Athens was in continual flux due to political upheaval. Democracy was at last overthrown by a junta known as the Thirty Tyrants, led by Plato's relative, Critias, who had been a student of Socrates. The Tyrants ruled for nearly a year before the Athenian democracy was reinstated, at which point it declared an amnesty for all recent events. Four years later, it acted to silence the voice of Socrates.

This argument is often denied, and the question is one of the largest philosophical debates when trying to determine what, exactly, it was that Socrates believed. The strongest argument of those who claim that Socrates did not actually believe in the idea of philosopher kings is Socrates' constant refusal to enter into politics or participate in government of any sort; he often stated that he could not look into other matters or tell people how to live when he did not yet understand himself. The philosopher is only that, a lover of wisdom, and is not actually wise. Socrates' acceptance of his death sentence, after his conviction by the Boule, can also support this view. It is often claimed that much of the anti-democratic leanings are from Plato, who was never able to overcome his disgust at what was done to his teacher. In any case, it is clear that Socrates thought that the rule of the Thirty Tyrants was at least as objectionable as democracy; when called before them to assist in the arrest of a fellow Athenian, Socrates refused and narrowly escaped death before the Tyrants were overthrown. Judging by his actions, he considered their rule less legitimate than that of the democratic senate who sentenced him to death.

Mysticism

When reading the dialogues of Plato, Socrates often seems to manifest a mystical side, discussing reincarnation and the mystery religions; however, this is generally attributed to Plato. Regardless, this cannot be dismissed out of hand, as we cannot be sure of the differences between Plato and Socrates; in addition, there seem to be some corollaries in the works of Xenophon. In the culmination of the philosophic path as discussed in Plato's Symposium and Republic, one comes to the Sea of Beauty or to the sight of the form of the Good in an experience akin to mystical revelation; only then can one become wise. (In the Symposium, Socrates credits his speech on the philosophic path to his teacher, the priestess Diotima, who is not even sure if Socrates is capable of reaching the highest mysteries). In the Meno, he refers to the Eleusinian Mysteries, telling Meno he would understand Socrates' answers better if only he could stay for the initiations next week.

Perhaps the most interesting facet of this is Socrates' reliance on what the Greeks called his "daemon", a voice who spoke to Socrates only and always when Socrates is about to make a mistake. It was this daemon that prevented Socrates from entering into politics. In the Phaedrus, we are told Socrates considered this to be a form of "divine madness", the sort of insanity that is a gift from the gods and gives us poetry, mysticism, love, and even philosophy itself. Alternately, the daemon is often taken to be what we would call "intuition"; however, the Greek word was clearly used to signify a spirit or entity akin to what we would call a guardian angel, and Socrates certainly seemed to attribute personality and voice to his daemon.

Satirical playwrights

He was prominently lampooned in Aristophanes's comedy The Clouds, produced when Socrates was in his mid-forties; he said at his trial (in Plato's version) that the laughter of the theater was a harder task to answer than the arguments of his accusers. Socrates is also ridiculed in Aristophanes' play The Birds for his dirtiness, which is associated with the Laconizing fad; also in plays by Callias, Eupolis, and Telecleides. In all of these, Socrates and the Sophists were criticised for "the moral dangers inherent in contemporary thought and literature".

Prose sources

Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle are the main sources for the historical Socrates; however, Xenophon and Plato, were direct disciples of Socrates, and presumably, they idealize him; however, they wrote the only continuous descriptions of Socrates that have come down to us. Aristotle refers frequently, but in passing, to Socrates in his writings.

The Socratic Dialogues

Note: the naming conventions regarding Wikipedia articles on Plato's texts are currently under revision.

See: Category Talk:Dialogues of Plato

The Socratic dialogues are a series of dialogues written by Plato and Xenophon in the form of discussions between Socrates and other persons of his time, or as discussions between Socrates' followers over his concepts. Plato's Phaedo is an example of this latter category. While Plato's Apology is a speech (with Socrates as speaker), it is nonetheless generally counted as one of the Socratic dialogues.

Plato's dialogues only contain the direct words of each of the speakers, while Xenophon's dialogues are written down as a continuous story, containing, along with the narration of the circumstances of the dialogue, the "quotes" of the speakers.

Plato generally does not place his own ideas in the mouth of a specific speaker; he lets ideas emerge via the Socratic method, under the guidance of Socrates. Most of the dialogues present Socrates applying this method to some extent, but nowhere as completely as in the Euthyphro. In this dialogue, Socrates and Euthyphro go through several iterations of refining the answer to Socrates' question, "What is piety?"

In Plato's dialogues, learning appears as a process of remembering. The soul, before its incarnation in the body, was in the realm of Ideas. There, it saw things the way they truly are, rather than the pale shadows or copies we experience on earth. By a process of questioning, the soul can be brought to remember the ideas in their pure form, thus bringing wisdom.

Especially for Plato's writings referring to Socrates, it is not always clear which ideas brought forward by Socrates (or his friends) actually belonged to Socrates and which of these may have been new additions or elaborations by Plato — this is known as the Socratic problem. Generally, the early works of Plato are considered to be close to the spirit of Socrates, whereas the later works — including Phaedo — are considered to be possibly products of Plato's elaborations.

Other views

Some hold that Socrates was a fictional character, invented by Plato and plagiarised by Xenophon and Aristophanes to articulate points of view which were considered too revolutionary for the author to admit to holding. However, this theory has little merit, especially when it is considered that Aristophanes wrote about Socrates (in a negative light) long before Socrates died and Plato began to write his dialogues.

Quotations

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Socrates

The following quotations are attributed to Socrates in Plato's and Xenophon's writings:

The unexamined life is not worth living. (Apology, 38. In Greek, ho de anexetastos bios ou biôtos anthorôpôi).

For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul. - Apology, by Plato. Translated by Benjamin Jowett.

You, Antiphon, would seem to suggest that happiness consists of luxury and extravagance; I hold a different creed. To have no wants at all is, to my mind, an attribute of Godhead - Memorabilia, by Xenophon. Translated by H.G. Dakyns.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil. (Phaedo, 91)

So now, Athenian men, more than on my own behalf must I defend myself, as some may think, but on your behalf, so that you may not make a mistake concerning the gift of god by condemning me. For if you kill me, you will not easily find another such person at all, even if to say in a ludicrous way, attached on the city by the god, like on a large and well-bred horse, by its size and laziness both needing arousing by some gadfly; in this way the god seems to have fastened me on the city, some such one who arousing and persuading and reproaching each one of you I do not stop the whole day settling down all over. Thus such another will not easily come to you, men, but if you believe me, you will spare me; but perhaps you might possibly be offended, like the sleeping who are awakened, striking me, believing Anytus, you might easily kill, then the rest of your lives you might continue sleeping, unless the god caring for you should send you another. (Apology)

Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? (Last words, according to the Phaedo — Asclepius was the god of medicine and healing, to whom such a sacrifice might be made upon the curing of a disease).

Really, Ischomachus, I am disposed to ask: "Does teaching consist in putting questions?" Indeed, the secret of your system has just this instant dawned upon me. I seem to see the principle in which you put your questions. You lead me through the field of my own knowledge, and then by pointing out analogies to what I know, persuade me that I really know some things which hitherto, as I believed, I had no knowledge of. (Oeconomicus by Xenophon, translated: The Economist by H.G. Dakyns)

Is the pious holy because it is loved by the gods, or is it loved by the gods because it is holy? (Eurythpro)

And I say that there will only be a perfect city when philosophers have become kings. (Republic)

And I went down to Pireus, to see the festival of the goddess... Opening words of the Republic. The phrase 'I went down' is important because it describes, in the parable of the cave, the duty of the philosopher.

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